Yveghem (city)
Yveghem is a city located on an enclave of Land of Waze. It is completely surrounded by the kingdom of Gilleanis. The miners city was founded in 939AE, right after a land-trade between the two nations, by Yvelot, a merchant from Antwerpen. Only a few weeks after the first houses were built Yvelot discovered silver nearby. Thanks to that discovery Yveghem became the biggest and wealthiest city of whole Alritten. History The history of Yveghem begins with it's founding father Yvelot, who had a transport company that maintained trade between Gilleanis and Land of Waze. In 939AE these two countries swapped land. Thanks to this landswap Yvelot's company was suddenly located in Waze territory. He saw his chance and proposed to build a small tradeport on this location, something Gilleanis didn't allow him due to a monopoly in the port of Hogynd. Since Waze allowed him, he immediately started building a small settlement, which he called Yveghem, with a port nearby. He bought two small tradeships and a flagship: The Yveston. Land of Waze built a Roadway to connect it with the mainland and pays rent at Gilleanis to upkeep it. Only after 23 days, Yvelot himself discovered Silver nearby. He immediately started his own mining company inside his village, which led to an explosive growth of the city. The city became pretty rich, although it's population was fairly poor. 55% of the inhabitants live in poverty and work in the mines. Yvelot died in 967AE, but left his two twindaughters (Yveline and Yveline) an immense heritage. The little settlement grew to a rich city of 150 000 inhabitants, with multiple silvermines and a harbour with fleet of 43 ships to export silver. Sadly his big objective to become a great tradeconnection between the north and the east never became true. A year later a big crisis started for Yveghem. The Yvelines were surely capable to lead the city, but Irmanis Kobe just opened his Platinum mine near Sinwaze. A lot of Yveghem's miners left the city to go work there for a slightly higher wage. The silver also dropped in price, until silverpieces were worth ten times it's weight in silver. It lasted 8 years untill the sisters found proof that Kobe gave his miners "strangle-contracts", which gave them more debts then wage. Also they convinced the government that the mine was located on holy soil, and that Kobe didn't pay his taxes. This led to a voting in the parliament, which was rigged by Kobe, who gave every member 10 gold coins if they voted for him. Some sources claim Yveghem offered double: 2 000 silverpieces per person. The voting resulted in a ban for Kobe, who had to close his mine. From then on Yveghem grew again. The Yvelines wanted to make sure the city would survive a second crisis and started a three year plan to let the city grow economically. This appealed a lot new merchants. Economy Today Yveghem is still one of the fastest growing cities on Tythin. It started attrackting experts on several crafts, so raw recources could be worked with on the spot. This gives a wider gamma of economic activities. * Silvermining * Silverforging * Jewelry * Smithing * Woodcrafting * Intercontinental trade Yveghem is often dubbed as the "Capital of crafts" and "The port to the east". It is growing strong and experts say it could become the biggest harbour by 1030AE.